


Erotomania

by punkrockgaia



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:36:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockgaia/pseuds/punkrockgaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erotomania: a condition in which a person is obsessed with another person and groundlessly believes that person to be in love with him or her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erotomania

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate take on the Cecearl thing, outside my usual canon.

Earl shuddered as he switched on his hand-cranked radio, only to be greeted with the sound of Mesopotamian opera. His muscles quieted. There was still time.

Knees shaking, he pushed the hard wood chair away from his government-issue circa-1965 heavy metal desk and scuffled to his wool-blanketed bunk. He checked to make sure no one else was looking, then pulled the footlocker from underneath it. 

He chanted the appropriate chants and the padlock sprung open. The first layer in the box was all proper, just like the first layer of Earl's mind. Scout uniforms, starched and pressed. Sashes that had grown too overladen with badges to be useful. His wedding photo with Bridget. A picture of three kids with red hair and freckles.

Underneath, a layer of snow-white underwear. Snow-white, so clean, so pure. So clean.

_So pure._

Under that, the dirty stuff. The stuff that was **His** fault.

His hands shook as he withdrew the scrapbook from the locker. He didn't dare open it, not yet. He carried it over to the desk and set it down, reverently.

He caressed the cover. He wouldn't open it, not yet. Not until the time was right.

He brought his nose close to the cover. It smelled of blood and unfinished leather. It smelled of smoke. It smelled of dirty, dirty sex.

It smelled of him.

He let his head rest on the cover for ten minutes, one second, an hour, who knew how long. Then, a voice like sable underwear purred through the tinny speakers.

"There is a thin semantic line separating weird and beautiful, and that line is covered in jellyfish..." the voice said.

Earl knew what that really meant. Cecil meant him. He was the weird, and Cecil was the beautiful, and the jellyfish were... Were... Well, who could tell, if Cecil insisted on being so _obtuse_?

But now that Cecil had spoken to him, it was okay to open the album. Cecil had said so.

His fingers shook and his palms sweated as he opened the cover. He swallowed hard and wiped his hand across his chapped lips. His mouth, his throat, were so very dry. 

Cecil is talking about the forest outside of town. Cecil is the forest. Cecil is a black planet, lit by no sun. Earl looks at the first page of the scrapbook.

It's him, him and Cecil. About age nine. Not self-aware enough to be bashful, grinning to beat the band. The headline reads "New Cub Scout Pack really Grrrrowls!" There are other children in the photo. They don't matter. Just him. Him and Cecil.

Now Cecil is talking about how the schools are closed because of the meaninglessness of existence. Earl smiles and caresses the radio speaker, knowing that Cecil can feel the soft ghost of fingertips across his lips as he does. He knows that Cecil means that life is meaningless without him.

He turns the page. High school. Prom pictures, he and Cecil. Sure, they didn't go together... He'd gone with Bridget, and Cecil had gone alone, but they'd been together. He knew they had been. The DJ played their song. He'd danced with Bridget, and Cecil had been over by the punch bowl, talking to Carlsberg, but he'd met his eyes and smiled.

It was _THEIR SONG._

Cecil was talking about dream journals. See? He'd dreamed about it, too.

Earl feels himself starting to get hard inside of his khaki shorts. _Damn you, Cecil,_ he thinks. He looks around to see if this is permissible, municipally approved semi-public masturbation. No one is there. 

He lowers his zipper. Cecil thought it was okay, he was sure.

Cecil says, "You look nice today, Larry." Earl giggles. Cecil has always been one for such silly games! He didn't look anything like Larry Leroy.

He turned the next page of the scrapbook. The clippings there were smudged and charred. They were supposed to be completely redacted, but he could still make out the huge headline "Fire at the Palmer Estate." Then he scrubbed his eyes until he saw stars, as was expected of every good Night Vale citizen.

Well, one hand did, anyway. The other one was occupied.

Cecil mentioned something about a secret parade. Hrm, yes, there was one scheduled, and the Scouts were marching in it. But Earl knew it meant more. The secret was Cecil and the parade was his love. His fist moved faster as his hips arched off the chair.

OOoh, aah, yes, a Red Lobster commercial. Umfh, yes, Cecil was asking him out on a date.

"Muurrrr.... Cee... Ooh, but I'm a married man..." His fist was flying over his tip. God, Cecil, that fucking slut.

Cecil was talking about a pleasant tingle, much like the one building in his feet and balls. Earl stuffed the corner of his neckerchief in his mouth to muffle the sensations that Cecil was forcing through his body.

Then the weather. Ooh, Gods, he was close now. He turned the page in the scrapbook. There was his beautiful, gorgeous, perfect Cecil underneath a headline reading "Night Vale Finds It's Voice!" with a red pen mark and a scribble in Bridget's handwriting, then a note that reads "its, possessive." Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

In the opposite page of the newspaper, also preserved, is a wedding announcement. Earl Harlan and Bridget Schwartz. In the photo, Earl's dressed up in his best. It's not for Bridget.

Now Cecil is talking about organic networks. Oh, God, yes, Cecil. You are my organic network. How could he get away with talking such filth on the radio? Earl feels his pelvis arch as he comes, hard, spattering his sash with dirty, dirty Cecil cum.

Now Cecil is talking some crap about a hamster. Earl strips his sash off as he grimaces, disgusted. 

Fuck you, Cecil.

Fuck you.

We could have been something.

The ceremony next week would show him, though. That would show him.


End file.
